Ekaterina Sedia - The Alchemy of Stone

Mattie thought that apparently the disowned advantages did not include clothes, but nodded politely. “It is very noble of you.” Her mind boiled with questions, and finally she chose the most pressing one. “Is Iolanda all right?”

“Why?” the woman said. “Do you know her?”

Mattie nodded. “Is she all right? I was so worried when they… when the houses were burned.”

“She’s fine,” the woman answered. “Never better. She and that new servant of hers were not there—they are safe and well.”

“Niobe is not a servant,” Mattie said. “She is my friend. Where are they? Here?”

“No,” the man named Cedrik said. “We have many safe houses… but of course you will forgive me for not divulging their location.”

“Of course.” Mattie glanced toward the mouth of the tunnel, anxious to see Sebastian. “And this place here?”

“One of many,” he answered. “It’s just one cell, but there are plenty of others. It’s a good place to meet and distribute supplies and catch up on the news for those who can’t show their faces in the city proper.”

Mattie wondered if Ilmarekh had given them his telegraph apparatus voluntarily—but of course he had to. Mattie kept forgetting that his frail appearance concealed a remarkable weapon—people were afraid of him, in danger from his mere proximity. Of course he had to leave it outside, to be found or collected, the ghosts calling to those they had left behind.

She remembered something Ilmarekh told her on their first meeting. The spirits, he said, the souls. They are not angry at the living, they just want to help. Helping others is the only way we can prove we still matter. She looked at the apparatus with new respect—it wasn’t just a cast-off; it was an expression of support from those who were dead.

Mattie heard a familiar voice at the mouth of the tunnel, and focused her eyes to look at the face behind the blinding light beam. Her heart faltered and ticked louder as she recalled these eyes half-closed in ecstasy, this smiling mouth pressed against her chest… she suppressed the rising wave of shame and stepped forward to greet him.

His smile faded and his eyes widened for just a moment, but Mattie noticed. “Mattie,” he said. “How did you find me?”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t difficult. I need to know something.”

“Ask then,” he said, with just a hint of irritation giving an edge to his voice. “I’ve a few things I need to do.”

“Was it you?” she said. “Was it you who bought the explosives?”

He shook his head. “No. I did let them use my medallion, so there you have it. Anything else you want to know?”

Do you love me? she wanted to ask, but there were people and their faces, their eyes watching her askance, as if too embarrassed to admit that they were indeed looking. Instead, she looked at her hands when she said, “The mechanics and the alchemists know it was your medallion. They will be looking for you—and this time really looking for you. You can’t go into the city anymore.”

“They were bound to find out sooner or later,” he said with a shrug of his large shoulders. “But thank you for telling me. I’ll be careful.” He shifted from one foot to another and raked his hand through his hair. “Perhaps you should get going—there’s much to do, and for you there’s no point in getting involved and endangering yourself like that.”

Mattie realized that he was embarrassed of her—not just of what they had done earlier, but of her mere presence here. He did not want his friends to know that he was friendly with a machine. “When will I see you again?” she said. She did not know why it was important to her to make him admit that he knew her, that he was her friend.

“I don’t know, Mattie,” he answered. “But you’re welcome here any time—please come and visit.”

There was nothing left for Mattie to do but to say her goodbyes and head out. The way back through the tunnel, alone and in the dark so thick that even her eyes barely penetrated it, seemed longer than before, when there were people surrounding her. She wished she could’ve waited for someone else to leave, just so she wouldn’t have to travel alone, but Sebastian seemed eager to see her go.

She imagined things hiding in the darkness, terrible things that could rend her to pieces, limb by limb, gear by toothed gear, nothing left of her but a pile of spare parts, just like the one that occupied most of Loharri’s workshop. Her thoughts turned to him—was he mad at her that she had left so abruptly earlier? Would he be happy to see her back unharmed?

The walls, gray stone behind the scaffolding, reminded her of the color of the gargoyles—it was sleek and cold like their skins, and Mattie couldn’t help but think that this was the stone they came from, the solid mass of rock that gave them birth. It was not so solid anymore, shot through with shafts and tunnels and mines. Maybe this is why the gargoyles are losing their strength, their power, Mattie thought. People are destroying the stone the city is built on, and what could one expect but a collapse? She felt the floor by the walls blindly, until she found a few stone slivers, and put them in her pocket. She would work and find out how this stone was different from any other, and why it held the gargoyles in such thrall. Work offered the comfort of familiarity and preoccupation with matters she could control, and which did not hurt so much.

In her laboratory, Mattie crushed the gray stones almost vengefully, and listened to the smallest crystals sigh and squeal under the slow twists of her pestle. She poured solvents over the crumbs and set them ablaze, carefully noting the blue and green color of the flames and the tiny salamanders that frolicked inside, playful and mischievous like puppies.

Mattie watched them for a while. She remembered Ogdela giving her a funny look when she had first seen the salamanders. “What are you staring at?” Ogdela had asked her then.

“Salamanders,” Mattie answered. “The fire denizens.”

Ogdela snorted. “Silly girl, you can’t see them, so there’s no point in looking for them.”

“But I do see them,” Mattie said. “Look!”

Ogdela shook her head. “Your eyes are better than mine then. Better than anyone’s.”

When Mattie questioned Loharri about her eyes, he grinned with the undamaged half of his face, and said something about polarized light and varying light sensitivity. Mattie did not understand the exact meaning, but figured that it meant that her eyes were special—something she suspected ever since he took them away from her. He did it again on a few occasions—sometimes as a punishment, sometimes for mere tinkering and improving.

“They are good enough,” Mattie had begged on many occasions when he wanted to work on her eyes just once more. “Please, don’t do this again.”

“They could be better,” he always answered. “You could see things no one else could see.”

“I already can,” she told him. “And I don’t like it when you take my eyes—I can see nothing at all then.”

The flames went out and the salamanders disappeared, and Mattie shifted idly through the charred remnants of the rock, its essence burned away in the blue and green flames, leaving behind only the most simple and most basic constituents.

She dribbled some sheep’s blood over them, added the herbs and the elements, and a small crystal of her eye to animate it, to make it listen to her. The homunculus took form, and Mattie put it in the same jar as the previous one, made from regular stone before Sebastian’s appearance interrupted her work.

The homunculi bubbled and seemed to size each other up, and Mattie quickly poured the mineral essence into the jar to feed them, and tightened the lid. She watched as the two creatures lapped up her offering and then locked arms. They struggled and wrestled with each other, and for a while it looked like neither was gaining the upper hand, until Mattie realized that their hands and arms had fused together.